46 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



fire, in an uncovered vessel ; season it with butter, sugar, and cinnamon or nutmeg. The 

 milk must be new, otherwise it will curdle before the rice is cooked. 



Jl-xe 15, 1846.- 



My Dear Sir: Your favor, postmaiked the 8lh May, directed to Upper Marlboro', did 



not reach me till a few days shice, or you would have been sooner an.swered. You ask 



whether " there is any dilference, for nice table bread, between tlie meal of the white and 



the yellow — the flint and the softer — corn? and wliich is preferred by the housewile and 



the cook .' " , . , • T , , • , 



There is a Teat difference ; and I never knew it to be questioned that white coni makes 

 always nicer bread than yellow corn. Yellow corn has a sti-ong smell and Uiste. and is bet- 

 ter for stock ; it is heavier, has more oU in it, and will yield more to the distiller ; but fijr 

 bread is inferior to the white. Negi-oes, who are great natural connoisseurs in llie prepara- 

 tion of corn bread, will not, except from dire necessity, use yellow com rneal. Flint corn 

 makes the best hominy and bread of all kinds of corn. The Calico, or Siou.x Indian corn 

 makes the whitest and softest meal, more hke wheat flour than any sort of com coming un- 

 der my knf)vvlcdge. It looks so like wheat flour that, without close inspection, you would 

 be deceived as to what it was. 



In reply to your other interrogatories, I have been brought to the conclusion that meal 

 may be too closely sifted to make good bread, juid that delicate flavor is lost where the coru 

 " has been too Jineli/ ground." Cue bushel of corn, after one-eighth has been taken out for 

 toll, should be ground just fine enough to make one bushel of me;d, clear of the siftings : 

 this makes it about the right fineness to be prepared into good bread. 



You say tnily that " pone, is the only way tiiat corn bread can with satisfaction be eaten 

 coW I send you the following recipes, derived fiom some of our very best old-tune house- 

 wives : 



JoHN.w OR .TouRXKY Cake. — Sift the meal; add a table-spoonfiiU of salt and one of lard to 

 one cpxart of meal ; then pour on boiling water slowly, stirring all the time till it becomes 

 well mixed, and of a consistency bjirely thick enough for the spoon to stand upright in it. — 

 Then spread on the johnny cake board ; place it -.it an angle — say an acute angle — bdbre the 

 fire, but not too near so as to bum. The cake should be spread about a quarter of an inch 

 thick on the board ; and, when browned on one side, slip a knife between the board and 

 the cake, and tiii-n it, so that both sides b;'Conie brown, iuid then serve it up. 



A journey cake board should be of whito ojtk, twenty inches long, five broad, half an inch 

 thick, sti-aight, tmd perfectly smooth. I'ut a l)rick or stone behind it when you set it down 

 before the fire. 



Tme Wafer .Tohvny Cakk is made just as the above, but you make it very thin by add- 

 ing more water, and it is spread on the board not more than one-eighth of an inch thick — 

 indeed, as thin as possible — so, when it is done, it has curled up, and is brown and cris}) — 

 a mere wafer, tliat crushes to powder by letting it fall. 



Common Pone is made as the thick journey cake, oidy a little stiller or thicker, as dougb, 

 and put in a Dutch oven and baked slowly till it becomes brown, bottom and top. 



Po^E — Best — (which is intended to be eaten cold at dinner.) — One quart of meal, well 

 sifted ; one table-spoonfull of salt ; ponr on boiling water, and stir with a spoon till well mixed 

 into a mush, so that the spoon will not stiuid upright in it. Tut it by the fire, or hi some 

 waiTxi place, that it may " lighten," as the darkies say, or leaven ; and for this purjiose it re- 

 quires fiom mom till night, or night till mom. When leavened, if too thin, stir in a little 

 meal ; add a tablc-spnoulidl of lard ; pour it in a Dutch oven, and biike it until it is brown, bot- 

 tom and top. It reciuiies a considerable bidving, as it ought to be at least three inches thick 

 and have a thick crust. It is good fm- days. It will have always a slight acidity about it ; 

 but, if it should be too sour when you go to bake it, you can add a little .-^deratus, which 

 will correct it. People who live upon tliis bread, eaten always cold, with boimyclabber, 

 will never die of dyspepsia, but will enjoy the greatest of God's blessmgs — health. w.w.w.b. 



[A recipe for this sort of pone bread is exactly what we wanted. It sroes back, 

 by association in our minds, to that early period of life, when, of all things on 

 earth, we hate school most, and love hunting best. How could it be that in 

 those days, with the sort of education in vogue, a boy should not liave tired at the 

 very thought of school ? What was the system ? what were the books ? The sys- 

 tern was one of reserve and rudeness on the part of the master, and of fear and dis- 

 like on the part of the boy ! The books were, from year's end to year's end, the 

 same— Dilworlh's Spelling Book, of which the great value consisted in xlw picture}!, 

 such as the man dismounting to whip his faithful old dog, especially if the /tor.'ce 

 was a handsome one — then there was the English Reader or Scott's Lessons, and 



(94) 



